(wondrous music) (narrator) This is the story of Australia, transformed into color for the first time.

From the early 20th century, as the moving image is born, Australia unifies as a nation.

A unique social experiment is captured as never before, in vivid moving archive.

A new generation of pioneers puts Australia on the world map.

A land home to ancient cultures swiftly becomes a colonial outpost.

(woman) No, I don't think at all that they should allow colored races into Australia.

♪ (narrator) It soon transforms into a multicultural melting pot.

(radio voice) Great Britain has declared war.

Australia is also at war.

(narrator) There are hardships, and triumphs, as the country finds its feet, establishing its own unique identity.

(woman) The eyes of the world are on Australia.

(narrator) But, behind the celebrations, there's a hidden story of a fledgling nation whitewashing its past.

Land rights isn't a word, it's a living.

(clamoring) (narrator) Modern Australia's history, once only black and white, can now be seen for the first time in glorious color.

♪ (whimsical music) ♪ It's 1929, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge is in its sixth year of construction.

♪ Until now, punts have ferried motorists across the water.

The bridge will at long last connect the north and the south.

♪ This engineering marvel will be the widest and tallest steel arch in the world.

♪ Costing six-and-a-quarter-million pounds loaned from Britain, it will take 50 years to pay back.

(pensive music) ♪ To fund its ambitious projects to develop the young nation, the Federal Government has borrowed more than nearly any country in the world.

♪ When the 1929 Wall Street crash sends the world tumbling into depression, Australia is one of the countries hardest hit.

♪ Demand for major exports falls by 50 percent, making it impossible to service the nation's huge debt of 53 million pounds.

♪ Australia has never experienced such a grave financial crisis.

♪ Labor Prime Minister James Scullin attempts to rally the country.

♪ (clattering) (James Scullin) I ask that you will have confidence in your government, that you will have confidence in your nation, and that you will have confidence in yourselves.

(trumpeting) ♪ (narrator) But, Australians are still recovering from the trauma of the First World War.

(choral music) Families are struggling with the loss of fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons.

♪ Thousands gather around the country on Anzac Day to collectively grieve their loss.

(indistinct collective singing) Their grief is compounded by the growing financial crisis.

The nation's resolve is about to be tested.

(somber music) ♪ By 1932, one-third of Australians are out of work, bankruptcies soar, thousands are unable to pay their rent, and many end up on the street.

♪ Government handouts of 10 shillings barely covers the cost for food and are only given to men.

Single women and indigenous people are excluded.

(clamoring) (male voice) ...in despair.

It is with a city of shadows that this story is deeply concerned.

(narrator) Filmmaking duo Rupert Kathner and his partner Alma Brooks provide a unique snapshot of domestic life in the Depression.

(male voice) And those who have never had a chance are home in the slums, not the kind of place about which poems and songs are written, but a typical example of the conditions under which the less fortunate of us live our lives.

♪ (narrator) Their film Men of Tomorrow is one of the first social documentaries combining reportage with reenactments.

♪ Brooks plays the role of the suffering wife.

♪ It captures the home life of working-class Australians most hit by the Depression.

♪ They film the inner city slums of Sydney now rife with crime and homelessness.

♪ As families struggled to put food on the table, the birth rate declines, and in these desperate years male suicides increase.

♪ (peppy music) ♪ But, the community soon finds ways to alleviate the hardships.

♪ (man) Hey now, folks, I got raincoats here.

(narrator) A flourishing black market economy emerges.

(indistinct remarks) ♪ Men leave the cities in droves in search of work, reversing the influx of the 1920s.

♪ (bell dinging) Swaggies become a common feature of the country landscape.

♪ In some towns, like Gundagai in New South Wales, Chinese communities, here since the gold rush of the 1850s, are surviving better than others.

As skilled market gardeners, they helped bolster dwindling food supplies.

♪ In the 1930s, Australia's population is more than 90 percent White, and despite Federation, the nation is still very much an extension of the Empire.

♪ Since 1901, the Immigrate Restriction Act has denied entry to anyone of color.

♪ (quirky music) Nonetheless, there are pockets of culturally diverse communities, mostly European migrants who have made Australia their home.

♪ But, as politicians argue over how to deal with the economic crisis, immigration almost ceases.

♪ (tapping) (peppy piano music) Laughter becomes a remedy for Australians in times of trouble, and out of the Depression emerges a new breed of comedian.

(tapping) George Wallace plays an inebriated yokel, and audiences can't get enough of it.

(thudding) Now listen to me, boys and girls, for no reason at all, I'm going to sing a song now, a very, very pathetic Hungarian love ballad entitled, "My Girl Works in the Bottle Works, and the Boys Say She's a Corker."

All right, mate, come on, let's go.

(solemn piano music) ♪ Oh, we had the lovely party ♪ ♪ Down the Donover Saturday night ♪ (narrator) Wallace is one of the most loved and highly paid performers -of the era.

-♪ The finest man ♪ -♪ in all the land ♪ -His success paves the way for saucy acts like radio duo Ada and Elsie.

(indistinct singing) (applauding) (peppy piano music) They speak with English accents, but their humor is distinctly Australian.

(laughing) (Ada) I see a foreman down there is making eyes at me.

(chuckling) All the same, I wish you hadn't gone out with that oxy welder, -I don't like his tone.

-I told him off last night.

-Why, what did he say?

-He said I was a refrigerator girl.

-What did you say?

-I said I may be a refrigerator girl, but you're not the one to defrost me.

(laughing) (radio voice) And he liked the team training out of Bow View Hill.

(narrator) Since the first commercial radio broadcast in 1923, the public was hooked.

(man) And now the calling of the game, Victor Manstead.

He'll sing "Nursie, Nursie."

(boy) ♪ Nursie, come over here and hold my hand ♪ ♪ Nursie, there's something I can't understand ♪ (narrator) A decade on, there are more than 50 radio stations.

(whistling) It's cheap entertainment, with many shows recorded before live audiences.

(all) ♪ It won't be a stylish marriage ♪ ♪ I can't afford a carriage ♪ ♪ But you'll look sweet upon the seat ♪ ♪ Of a bicycle built for two ♪ (applauding) (narrator) Tuning in to familiar serials provides an escape from the austerity of the Depression, and sees the rise of popular radio stars.

(man) Uncle, uncle, where are you?

(indistinct remarks) -Oh, I'd like to have-- -Let go of my neck.

-Ow, he bit me!

-Oh!

(clamoring) (narrator) But, the biggest radio star of all is cricket.

It's regarded as a religion by many Australians.

(radio voice) Hot and running, went open deep, has no chance, -so the ball goes under the-- -Test matches in England are reenacted in the studio, as overseas cables come in by the minute.

(radio voice) There's no chance of saving a boundary.

Two thumbs.

Fast turns, runs in, volley to Bradman.

spoiled wheel picks, moves forward, drives.

Corman to cover it, tries to cut it off, but is beaten by the pace of the ball, and races away for another four.

(dramatic music) (narrator) Cricket is an opportunity for Australia to outdo the mother country.

♪ Since the first match was played in 1877 between England and Australia, the rivalry has been intense.

♪ It comes to a head at the Adelaide Oval in January 1933, with a third of the Ashes.

♪ Seen here in color for the first time.

♪ In a tactic to outplay Australia's batting phenomenon, Don Bradman, the British captain, Douglas Jardine, orders his fast bowlers to aim the ball directly at the player.

♪ It's called bodyline.

♪ Australia's captain, Bill Woodfull, is struck on the chest.

♪ (clamoring) Next, Bert Oldfield is hit on the head and collapses with a fractured skull.

♪ The crowd's reaction fills the stadium.

They're appalled by the British underhand and unsportsmanlike behavior.

♪ (cheering and applauding) The Australians threaten to cancel the tour.

♪ The issue is hotly debated by both governments.

♪ After much deliberation, bodyline is outlawed as an offense to the spirit of the game.

♪ Britain goes on to take home the Ashes, but the incident signifies a crack in relations between the countries.

♪ It proves to be a taste of things to come.

(whirring) (pensive music) ♪ At the height of the Depression in 1932, the government plans a major celebration to open the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

♪ Many families, like the farers from Melbourne, make the 600-mile trek to witness the opening of this engineering masterpiece.

♪ The day before the official ceremony, 60,000 schoolchildren from across New South Wales are invited to be the first to cross the bridge.

♪ Amongst them is the brave 8-year-old Kenneth Jones, who has chosen to scale the bridge.

♪ (broadcaster) This is Saturday the 19th of March, 1932.

The official opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, made in Australia by Australians for Australians.

What a glorious day.

(narrator) Newspapers estimate that a million Australians turned up to celebrate.

♪ Many had hoped a member of the royal family would cut the ribbon, but in a cost-cutting measure, New South Wales Labor Premier Jack Lang declares he will do it himself.

♪ (Jack Lang) The fable our Sydney dreamed about, worked for, and fought over, the bridge which is about to be made available to them.

(narrator) Lang claims the financial crisis is due to the debt incurred by supporting the British war effort.

He argues that these loan repayments put an unfair burden on Australians.

(solemn music) His stance challenges Australia's ironclad commitment to Britain.

♪ But, many disagree with Lang, who makes enemies, including the New Guard, a fascist group of middle-class diggers loyal to king and empire.

They consider the Premier a communist threat to the order of society.

♪ The New Guard's membership swells to over 50,000, and they make a plan to kidnap Lang.

♪ March 1932.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is about to be officially opened.

♪ New South Wales Premier Jack Lang approaches the ribbon.

Instead of kidnapping the Premier, a member of the right-wing New Guard, Francis de Groot has decided to publically humiliate Lang.

He charges through the entourage on his horse.

Slashing the ribbon with his military sword, he declares the bridge open in the name of the respectable citizens of New South Wales.

♪ He is quickly arrested.

The ribbon is retied, and the proceedings continue.

♪ (cheering) It's a small blight on the event, but it highlights cracks in Australia's unwavering allegiance to Britain.

(marching band music) ♪ The First Australians are a token inclusion in the celebrations.

♪ They are not classed as citizens in their own country, and have no voting or legal rights.

(somber music) But, change is brewing.

♪ Some Indigenous communities are becoming politicized, like the Anderson family from Salt Pan Creek in Western Sydney.

Their son Joe, known as King Burraga, takes advantage of modern cinema newsreel to get his message across.

I am calling the cooperation of all the natives of New South Wales to send a petition to the King in an endeavor to improve our conditions.

All a Black man wants is representation in Federal Parliament.

There is also plenty fish in the river for us all, and land to grow all we want.

They want the right to live.

♪ (narrator) Since Federation, the state governments have exercised increasing control over the lives of Indigenous people.

♪ Many have been forced onto missions, often fleeing frontier violence.

♪ In 1939, new laws in Queensland make all Aboriginal children up to the age of 21 wards of the state.

♪ They're taken to remote missions and reserves, like Cherbourg and Palm Island, to segregate them from White society.

♪ This 1937 film, The Native Problem in Queensland, follows the Chief Protector of Aborigines, John Bleakley, on his tour of the missions.

♪ Children are removed from their families, and are denied their language, customs, and freedom.

♪ Their parents require a permit to visit them.

♪ The girls are trained as domestic servants for White families, and often return pregnant, only to have their mixed-race children taken by the state.

♪ Apart from workers, White Australians are not permitted on these remote missions.

♪ (peppy music) ♪ For most city people, the only contact with Indigenous groups is watching tent boxing at the traveling shows that flourish in the '30s.

♪ The popular Jim Sharman troupe of boxers offers a way to make a living for young Indigenous men.

♪ As well as boxing, there's a smorgasbord of sideshows which are hotly anticipated across the country.

♪ These curious novelties provide a glimpse of a distant exotic world.

(triumphant music) ♪ Ladies and gentlemen, introducing to you Princess Ubangi, Queen of the Pygmies, first appearance in Australia direct from Africa.

(laughing) (narrator) Princess Ubangi is in fact Maria Peters, a British citizen.

(laughing) But, because of her skin color, she's only given six month's entry.

(laughing) She and other non-White performers, must sail to the British colony of Singapore to renew their visas.

(wondrous music) ♪ One of the most famous circus acts of the era, in not only Australia but the world, is Con Colleano.

He's an Aboriginal wire walker from Lismore in New South Wales.

♪ Colleano's home movies are a unique account of circus life in America, where he is the principle star with the Ringling Brothers.

♪ Con earns $1,000 American dollars a week, the equivalent of $15,000 today.

♪ Billed as the Australian Wizard of the Wire, few are aware of Colleano's Indigenous heritage... ♪ ...as his trademark act is that of the Spanish toreador.

He learned his distinctive routine from his Australian wife and fellow trapeze artist, Winnie.

♪ Born into a circus family of 10, Con's Aboriginal mother and Irish father adopt the Latin name Colleano.

It's a common occurrence in traveling shows, and also masks the children's Aboriginal heritage.

(quirky music) ♪ (whimsical music) Con becomes the star act at 19, performing the world's first feet-to-feet somersault on the wire.

♪ Fated throughout the world, Colleano is considered the greatest ever high-wire walker.

♪ In winter, he and his troupe tour the Vaudeville houses of Europe, performing for Italian dictator, Mussolini, and the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler.

♪ Both are ardent fans.

♪ Hitler praises Colleano, offering him a complimentary passport to Germany.

♪ (cheering) ♪ As Hitler's Nazi Party comes to power with its anti-Semitic vision, in Australia, one of the biggest Vaudeville stars is Jewish comedian Roy Mo Reen.

(Mo) ...and I'll tell you something, stop it, I say, stop it!

And Donald, I'm going to get it.

-How?

-I am going to get a job.

(sighing) Yes, I'm gonna turn over a new leaf!

And work!

(clattering) (whirring) (narrator) He stars in this 1934 feature film, Strike Me Lucky, seen in color for the first time.

Mo, whose real name is Harry van der Sluys, is billed as Australia's Charlie Chaplin.

His performance is a unique blend of Jewish caricature with Australian irreverence.

(indistinct remarks) His popular catch phrases like, "Fair suck of the sav," and "Don't come the raw prawn with me," enter the vernacular.

-You're going right home.

-But, what about--?

(narrator) Always down on his luck and on the run from the law, Mo embodies the quintessential underdog that Australians identify with.

(screaming) (knocking) His popularity reveals a shift in acceptance of ethnic difference.

(Mo) I like you big jokers, you know, you wanna come right outside and say those--ah!

(solemn music) ♪ Some cultural differences may be gaining acceptance at home, but in Europe, the Nazis intensify their campaign of terror against the Jews.

♪ Tens of thousands flee Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries.

♪ Britain offers to resettle those displaced to different parts of its empire.

♪ Australia participates, and between 1933 and 1939, 7,000 Jewish refugees make the long journey to safety.

♪ It's not just the government that opens its arms.

A Jewish community in Melbourne sets up a settlement scheme, with properties like this house in Balwyn.

♪ The Jonah family's home movies show the warmth with which 32 newly arrived children are welcomed.

Their parents remain trapped in Germany.

♪ (clamoring) With another war immanent, White Australians unite in a wave of nationalism.

(cheering) January the 26th, 1938, marks the 150th anniversary of the First Fleet's landing.

Australia Day has only been celebrated by the whole nation for three years.

(distant bell dinging) In Sydney, the government decides to reenact Captain Phillip's arrival at Port Jackson, and the first encounter with Indigenous Australians.

(pensive music) Local Aboriginal groups refused to participate.

♪ Government representatives travel 1,000 kilometers to a reserve in Menindee in far West New South Wales to find replacements.

♪ The men are told they will be performing a dance.

♪ In Sydney, they discover the truth.

♪ They are to reenact the Eora people's retreat from the armed British soldiers.

♪ The men refuse.

(drumming) ♪ When the government threatens to cut off rations to their families, they have no choice but to participate.

♪ (announcer) All clear ashore, safe for the Commodore to land.

♪ It is now fitting that we should turn our minds to the part that's underlying this enterprise, which is to plant a fresh sprig of empire in this new and vast land.

(narrator) At the same time, Indigenous leaders gather in Elizabeth Street to protest against the Australia Day celebrations.

They declare it a national day of mourning for 150 years of misery and degradation their people have endured.

♪ They demand Indigenous Australians be given full citizenship rights in their own country.

It's a pivotal moment, marking the beginning of the Indigenous Rights Movement.

(grim music) (blasting) September the 3rd, 1939, and the country comes to a standstill when Prime Minister Robert Menzies speaks to the nation in this historic radio broadcast.

♪ (Prime Minister Menzies) Fellow Australians, it is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that in consequence of the persistence by Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain, has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war.

♪ (narrator) Once again, Australia signs up to fight for the Empire.

♪ But, the country is still dealing with the Depression, and is ill equipped for war.

Defense spending has been slashed, and the armed forces are using outmoded technology and weapons from the First World War.

(splashing) ♪ Paranoia sweeps the country.

♪ The government rounds up 7,000 people considered a threat to national security.

♪ Most are from enemy countries like Italy and Germany, but they also include 1,500 British nationals considered a risk because of their political or cultural affiliations.

♪ They are placed in prisons and detention camps across the country.

♪ Mail to and from servicemen is censored, and civilians are encouraged to be on the lookout for enemy aliens and spies.

♪ Communist and fascist organizations are banned, and compulsory military training is reintroduced.

(broadcaster) The AIF is marching, and the call is for men and still more men to fill the ranks to reinforce the gallant fighting unit services.

In Sydney, the recruiting drive adopts methods familiar in the last war.

(narrator) Menzies announces the raising of a special force of 20,000 troops, soon to be known as the Second Australian Imperial Force (military music) Unlike World War I, Indigenous Australians are encouraged to enlist.

An estimated 4,000 sign up, receiving the same privileges and pay as White Australians.

(indistinct remarks) Sons enlist with fathers who fought in World War I.

(broadcaster) At Frenches Forest Sydney, men of the 17th Battalion Volunteer Defense Corps roll up in their hundreds for the weekend parade.

Australia's most senior serving officer of the last war watches the boys of the old brigade put in some stiff physical exercise.

Touch your toes, and they haven't touched them for years.

Limber up a bit now, it's like old times.

(quirky music) (narrator) Sentiment for the war effort is whipped up by patriotic campaigns.

(peppy music) (woman) ♪ It's up to you, and it's up to me ♪ Oh no, Bobby, too high, put it down.

(man) She sings in the basement, put it down.

♪ (woman) ♪ It's up to you, and it's up to me ♪ ♪ To rid the world of insanity and make it safe for humanity ♪ ♪ It's up to you, and it's up to me ♪ ♪ To go get a gun and look for the one ♪ ♪ Who wants our liberty ♪ (indistinct singing) (narrator) The Second Australian Imperial Force will join the Allies fighting in North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

(dramatic music) ♪ At stake in North Africa is the battle over the Suez Canal, a lifeline for Britain's colonial Empire.

♪ Official war cameraman Damien Parer films the first Australian battle at Bardia in Libya.

(whirring) ♪ They force 40,000 Italians to surrender.

♪ Weeks later, they take the Port of Tobruk.

♪ German reinforcements arrive to reclaim the port city.

♪ The siege lasts a relentless 8 months.

♪ 800 Australians are killed, but they are ultimately victorious.

They come to be known as the Rats of Tobruk, a name they adopt with pride.

♪ Parer's images screen in newsreels to Australians who, in 1941, still see the war as being fought far from their shores.

Back home, the Australian Women's Army Service is formed to release men from local military duties so that they can fight overseas.

24,000 enlist.

(wondrous music) The women perform clerical and manual work, maintaining transport and equipment vital for the war.

♪ (whirring) Women are also essential in producing food for the country.

♪ Volunteers form the Australian Women's Land Army, sending workers from the cities to farms.

♪ For the first time in the civilian workforce, jobs traditionally held by men are offered to women.

♪ I believe that women could prove a compelling force for victory, if, as part of the plan for a new world order, equality with men, the opportunity, status, and reward, were granted now to women.

♪ (narrator) More than 200,000 women joined the workforce, transforming the social landscape.

(peppy music) (broadcaster) Most of these vocations were regarded purely as male preserves.

But, women have broken the barriers, prove they can do the job as well as a man.

If the cautious see major post-war problems growing out of the wholesale transfer of women to male jobs, there can be but one answer to them: War stands on no ceremony, and this war we must win, no matter how our social structure my suffer in its winning.

(solemn music) ♪ (whistling) ♪ (narrator) December 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing America into the war and fear into Australian hearts.

♪ The Japanese begin an aggressive territorial expansion, moving south with alarming and unexpected speed.

♪ New Labor Prime Minister John Curtin attempts to reassure the nation.

♪ (Prime Minister Curtin) The full cabinet today directed the war cabinet to gazette the necessary regulations for the complete mobilization and the complete ordering of all the resources, human and material, in this commonwealth for the defense of this commonwealth.

♪ (narrator) With Britain preoccupied with its own threat of invasion, Curtin believes Australia needs a stronger ally.

♪ In a remarkable move, he publishes an article stating that, "Australia looks to America free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom."

♪ Churchill is furious, and Australians are divided, but Curtin's clear leadership brings confidence to the anxious population.

It is a defining moment in the nation's history.

♪ (grim music) ♪ World War II, and the Japanese military are sweeping south at lightning speed.

♪ (blasting) February the 15th, 1942, in a devastating blow, the Japanese take Singapore, Britain's stronghold in the Asia Pacific.

♪ It sends shockwaves through Australia.

The country is now under threat of real attack.

♪ (broadcaster) War laps the shores of Australia.

A huge Pacific area is Japanese territory by right of conquest.

The people responded as they might've been expected to respond.

Australia climbed behind her defenses, on demand and insecure as they were, and waited.

♪ (narrator) Four days later, it becomes a crushing reality when 188 Japanese planes rain death and destruction on the city of Darwin, killing 235 people and injuring hundreds more.

♪ For the first time in history, a global war has touched Australian soil.

♪ The attack devastates the navy fleet in Darwin's harbor, along with the port and much of the town.

♪ It is a victory for the Japanese to knock out one of the main bases from which their enemies can launch an offensive.

♪ 97 more attacks on Northern Australia follow, including on Broome in the west.

♪ In the south, coastlines are fortified, and capital cities take precautions to protect landmarks.

♪ The whole country readies itself for invasion.

♪ In a defiant act, Curtin ignores Churchill's directive, and brings home troops from the Middle East to defend the nation.

♪ Gentlemen, the truth is that if do not strip ourselves to save our country, the enemy will do it for us with ruthless efficiency, imposing upon us a maximum of misery.

(narrator) Then, in fateful timing, American President Franklin Roosevelt decides Australia is the ideal place from which to initiate a counter attack on Japan.

(whirring) Three days after Darwin's bombing, he orders General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines to take the command post of Southwest Pacific, with headquarters in Melbourne.

(cheering) Newsreels document MacArthur's arrival a month later.

He is greeted like a movie star.

(applauding) (General MacArthur) Tonight, another link to a long chain of friendship which binds together our peoples and our countries.

(triumphant music) (cheering) (narrator) American troops are welcomed as if the war is already won.

♪ It's the beginning of Australia's love affair with the United States.

♪ (broadcaster) People of Australia are just doubly anxious to make welcome these representatives of a great democratic free people, who speak a common language, cherish common ideals, blood relations who spring from a common ancestry.

(celebratory music) ♪ (narrator) But, not all are welcome.

In an embarrassing showdown for the government, the White Australia Policy prevents the African-American GIs getting off the boats.

To solve the crisis, more than 7,000 temporary visas are issued.

(clacking) (upbeat music) ♪ One million Americans come to the nation's shores during the war, and the city streets are crowded with servicemen.

♪ It's the largest temporary influx of foreigners since the gold rush of the 1850s, and it will have far-reaching consequences.

♪ Earning more than twice as much as the Australian troops, the Americans showered gifts and good old-fashioned charm on the local women.

♪ It causes great resentment among Australian men.

♪ Although first seen as saviors, as their numbers grow, the slogan emerges, "Overpaid, oversexed, and over here."

♪ (solemn music) ♪ Meanwhile, a mere 400 miles to the north of Queensland, Australian troops are fighting one of the most arduous campaigns of the war.

♪ In mid 1942, cameraman Damien Parer is filming in Papua New Guinea.

(insects chirping) I've seen the war and I know what your husbands, your sweethearts, and brothers are going through.

If only everybody in Australia could realize that this country is in peril, that the Japanese are well-equipped and dangerous enemy, we might forget about the trivial things, and go ahead with the job of licking 'em.

♪ (narrator) Seen in color for the first time, his images capture the everyday life of soldiers on the battlefield... (gunshots firing) ...bringing a realism not witnessed before.

♪ On both sides, thousands die in the rugged terrain and sweltering heat, many from dysentery and malaria.

♪ With the help of the locals, the Australians fight heroically against battle-hardened Japanese forces.

♪ In September 1942, on the infamous Kokoda Trail, they finally force back the Japanese.

♪ Parer's documentary, Kokoda Front Line!, makes history when it becomes the first Australian film to win an Academy Award in 1943.

♪ A year later, Parer is killed by a Japanese machine gunner while filming troops.

His images a testament to that hellish campaign.

♪ (sloshing) (whirring) (blasting) August the 6th, 1945, America drops the first of two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war.

(dramatic music) ♪ (wings flapping) ♪ When peace is declared nine days later, celebrations erupt across the nation.

♪ One million Australian men and women have served in the war.

Of those, 40,000 were killed, 23,000 wounded, and over 30,000 taken prisoner of war.

♪ Neither Curtin nor Roosevelt live to witness peace, but their countries have forged a new alliance that will have a significant and long-lasting impact on foreign policy, regional security, and Australian culture... ♪ ...not to mention on the lives of more than 12,000 women about to leave for their new home on the other side of the world.

(cheerful music) (broadcaster) Good luck to the Australian brides of American boys, and to the American husbands of Australian girls.

May they soon rejoin them across the other side of the big Pacific pond, which seems to get smaller every day.

♪ (uplifting music) ♪ (narrator) As Australia emerges from the afterglow of peace, it's sobered by the memory of massive government debt and high unemployment.

In the short-term, war has created new industries and jobs, which help to take the country out of the Depression.

But, how will the nation sustain itself in peacetime?

♪ With a population of just 7 million, the war has highlighted the country's vulnerability to attack.

♪ The vision of a White Australia will be seriously challenged in the post-war world by the need to populate or perish.

♪ (electronic music)